Mr Bakare Ayodeji is a 34-year old self-confessed armed robber and an ex-inmate of the popular Ikoyi Prisons in Lagos. He was imprisoned for 9 months before he was admitted to bail. While breathing his air of freedom, he got involved in a more serious armed robbery case. He is presently with the men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos. In this report by our Special Correspondent, LUKKEY ABAWURU, Ayodeji said it was evident he was on his way back to prisons where he came from even as he reminisced on his days back at the Ikoyi Prisons where he claimed to have received his professional training as an armed robber.
Enjoy As far back as the 16th and 17th centuries, prison has been one of a number of sanctions available to the courts to deal with those who commit criminal offences. It is a facility in which inmates serving a jail term or sentence are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment.
People charged with crimes may also be imprisoned until they are brought to trial or while awaiting punishment.
Various explanations had been put up by the state for putting people in prison.
Such justifications are explained by various theories of rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation and retribution.
Specifically, it is the argument of the state that the experience of being imprisoned will cause such persons to change their ways of lives in a way that will make them productive and law abiding members of the society (rehabilitation); deter other people who might be considering criminal activities in future out of fear of being clamped as well (deterrence); incapacitate them from committing fresh crimes while in custody and keep the community safer (incapacitation) and exact revenge on criminals by shaming them for the harms caused their victims (retribution).
In essence, prison is supposed to rehabilitate and reform inmates rather than harden those who find themselves there. The concept of establishing various prison formations in Nigeria is also not different.
But a 34-year old Bakare Ayodeji, an ex-inmate and self-confessed armed robber has said that the Nigerian prisons, rather than reform inmates, have the capacity to harden criminals, saying his experience is a good example.
He told our correspondent that way back 2011, he was detained at the Ikoyi Prisons where his mother extracted a promise from him that he would turn a new leaf.
He confessed that he actually planned to change his way of life and make his parents happy but that immediately he interacted with the Ikoyi Prison inmates, the story of his life took a dramatic turn.
Hear him: “I was arrested after robbing an Oyinbo man in Ikoyi. The matter was charged to court and I was remanded in Ikoyi prisons. When I was in the prisons, I promised my mother that I would turn a new leaf. She said she would perfect my bail conditions. My mum tried as she was bringing good food for me in the prison.
“In the inside world (Prison),there are no good food like in the outside world.
But my mother made it a duty to feed me. I was magnanimous to other inmates that they enjoyed the food with me.
“However, it was my generosity that added more sorrow to me because the hardened criminals in the prison who enjoyed my mother’s food decided that it was time they favour me,” he said.
Ayodeji who claimed that he was an amateur armed robber when he got to the prison in 2011 said he left the prison yard as a professional armed robber nine months after.
He said he spent nine months awaiting trial in the Ikoyi prisons before his mother perfected his bail conditions and got him released.
He however added that unknown to his mother who laboured every day to ensure his release, the nine month imprisonment offered him an opportunity to receive training as a professional armed robber in the prisons while he was also given a password to the network of the criminals both in Nigeria and beyond.
Hear him: “The inmates at the Ikoyi prisons initiated me into their cult (Aiye). After initiating me, they had my confidence and taught me many things I did not know. There is nothing that I don’t know about crime.
“I am now a confirmed expert in all manners of crime. I can recruit, initiate people and provide arms and ammunition. The greatest asset that makes me the man to beat is that I can handle any type of gun.
“I am an armed robber. I won’t lie about that. I was arrested in 2011 for armed robbery and I was on the awaiting trial list before my family arranged for my release. I spent about nine months there. I robbed a white man at Ikoyi club, I was arrested and charged to court.
“It was these my fellow inmates and senior dare devil criminals that took me high in crimes. It was in the prison that I learnt how to handle gun perfectly. When I was in the outside world, I was only following people who handle guns but I didn’t know how to operate a gun.
“Today, I can handle any kind of gun. It is not that there are guns inside the prisons but we used to mould or use papers to design guns.Those who know better will be teaching those who don’t know.
“It was in the prison that I was given the telephone numbers of one Kefu who is supplying me arms and ammunition. He lives in the Republic of Benin. When I came out from the prisons, it was Kefu that I met in Cotonou.
“He helped me to procure the gun and ammunition that I was arrested with. I bought the gun at N20,000 and I used to buy groundnuts (bullets) N1,000 each.
“The day I met him, after our transaction, he was the person who dropped me off on his motorcycle at the border. We followed apian ways to beat security operatives. He is still the one supplying me with bullets. He used to bring the bullets to me at Seme border where I picked them.
“He taught me also that if I was moving arms from anywhere, I should not join buses or cars that are conveying loads.The Police and Customs always concentrate on vehicles carrying loads. They don’t bother to search vehicles that are not carrying loads.
“While in prison, majority of us succeeded in adding more to what we already knew before. Also, while I was in prison, there were some people who teach skill acquisitions but how many of the inmates who see themselves as big guys would want to learn petty works that only fetch small coins?
He further confessed that his gang operates with Okada (motorcycle).
“We used to be three on Okada and we would move round the city. Once we suspect any person with money, we would ‘pack’ the person at gun point and search him or her. We can also ‘pack’ a motorist and rob him or her.
“We used to get money but I collect more than others during sharing because I own the gun, ammunition and I am the gang leader. I have killed but won’t know how many,” he added.
The impertinent robber said that he fired randomly during cross-fire with security agents and would not mind who got killed in the process.
He said he would not know what fate keeps for him for now but that if he would not return from the journey which he just embarked upon, he said he would have some regrets.
His words: “My regret is that I don’t know whether I will come out alive from this my second journey to prison. If I will come back, it is only God that can decide. If I come back, good. If not, no problem, let the will of God be done. If I dont come back, I will miss a woman that I love so much; she is pregnant for me. The implication is that I may not know my child.
Explaining further, Ayodeji said he would want to live, at least to see his child who would be delivered soon as “my lovely girlfriend is heavy. But it is only God that can decide if I will come back alive or not.
“Another regret I will have is that I don’t know whether I would stop robbery if I am released because I have gone far in the operation. My other regret is that all the money I made from armed robbery operations and sales of bullets were all squandered; I did not save a dime. I make happy because I am a cheerful giver. I wish I would be released so that I work for my future before retirement,” he added.
However, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni said the suspect and others would be charged to court soon.
He advised parents and guardians to monitor their children and wards so as to know what they do.
For more scintillating and juicy stories, follow the official Naijapals accounts On Twitter - https://twitter.com/Naijapals and Facebook - www.facebook.com/naijapals
Posted: at | |